DARIAN TOOK the train to Mormaer Station in Earmam and from there a Challaid Cabs taxi up to Wodan Road, a curving street named after a possibly fictional mercenary said to have helped The Gaelic Queen. DC Vicario had picked an amusing drinking spot. She worked The Hill, so it made sense that she would want to live somewhere nearby, so this might have been her local.
A long narrow building, the back of it looking out onto the loch, a view of the docks: the kindest thing you could say about MacCoy’s was that it tried its best. Maybe thirty years ago, when it was built, it might have been pretty nice, fashionable, raising the tone of the grotty neighborhood. The surroundings had since dragged it down to their level, and it looked scruffy, only hints now of what the owners had once aimed for and given up on.
Inside the decor was dated and gloomy, not many patrons to liven it up. That would have been another reason she had picked the place. The bar ran along part of the wall on the right as you went in the door; the few drinkers in the place were either lined up at it or at the tables way down the back where the large windows gave you a view of the water. All except one, sitting on her own at a table against the wall on the left, out of earshot for everyone else.
Darian walked across and said, “Hi, DC Vicario, thanks for meeting me.”
She said, “Angela. These are drinking hours, not working hours. I got you a pint; there isn’t a hell of a lot of variety round here. I had the choice of two wines, the red or the white.”
He sat down opposite her. Her black hair was curlier than before, as if she hadn’t had time to straighten it with all that was going on. There was a smile on the edges of her dark eyes when she said, “So what’s the big news that you had to get me to buy you a drink for?”
“Not news, questions. Did you know that Raven have stopped working for Harold Sutherland?”
Now she was interested. “What? They’re giving up Sutherland money? Why?”
Darian took a swig of his pint, horrible it was, as if the barman had reached out of the window to dip the glass in the loch, and said, “We don’t know. Seems to have been a falling-out. Could Harold have been the one sending Freya gifts? Maybe Raven found proof.”
“Well, if they did they’re a step ahead of us, because we have nothing.”
“I, uh, I don’t want to piss you off here, because I know that you’re doing everything you can in this case, everything…”
“But…”
“We had a visit from a colleague of yours to the office, DS Noonan, you know him.”
She grimaced and said, “Yeah, I know of him.”
“He was dropping hints like they were hot, telling us we’re going to get shut down, all smug and jokey about it but, you know, he’s dangerous. The Sutherlands are involved in a criminal case and everyone, I mean, absolutely everyone, knows that they have connections in the police force. We both know they have cops in their pocket, senior ones, high enough up the chain that they can shut down areas of investigation, make evidence go walkabout if they don’t like the look of it. Noonan’s the weapon they sent to shut us down when we wouldn’t be bullied or bought.”
Angela didn’t look annoyed. Instead she nodded and said, “Yeah, they have connections. Clever about it, too, the way they do it. I’ve seen it. The security department of the bank, they’re the ones that come and create the contacts, help out cops so they can get favors, build a relationship with you, give it a year or two and they have you wrapped round their middle finger, sticking it up at the rest of the city. They’re bloody good, but, no, they’re not going to stop us this time. No one’s told us to back off. Noonan’s an ugly piece of human garbage; I’ll make sure he doesn’t get too close to you again. Evidence going missing, I don’t know about that.”
Darian gave her a look that cut her off and she smiled her wide smile.
“Okay, yeah, I know it does happen, I’m not saying no, we’re still a force with…problems…”
“Ha, that’s a hell of a polite way of putting it. I heard things were getting worse, not better. The Anti-Corruption Unit in chaos as it gets rebuilt and the inmates running the asylum.”
Now she looked a little annoyed, but covered it well. “No, you’re getting carried away. Things aren’t worse, they’re just about the same. You’re believing the worst of us, and, frankly, I’m a little offended.”
Her smile took the sting out of what might have become an argument. Darian said, “I just worry about the dead ends we keep running down. It shouldn’t be this hard to find the truth.”
“It’s been tough. Is that what you wanted to see me about, to break the news that you think some of my colleagues are still corrupt and that neither of us has a clue what we’re doing with this case?”
He laughed. “No, not just that. It would help us to have Noonan held back. Plus, I feel like I need to talk it through with someone, get a fresh perspective. And, uh, I kinda wanted to see you again.”
“Oh, you kinda did, did you kinda?”
Darian was beginning to turn a fetching shade of red at this point and said, “Okay, I’m not good at this sort of thing, but, yeah, I did.”
“You’re right, you’re not good at this. Look, I do like you, but right now we’re both tangled up in the same net and we need to get out of that first. When this is over, soon, I hope, I think, then you can try and bowl me over with your sparkling seductive conversation. I think when this is done I’ll be interested in being bowled over.”
They walked out together onto Wodan Road, an ugly place that looked menacing in the dark.
Angela turned to face him and said, “I’m walking home from here, you have a car?”
“I’m not driving after taking a drink, officer. I’ll walk up to the ferry terminal at the docks and get a taxi to the station from there.”
She smiled and said, “Good answer. And don’t worry, Darian, I won’t count this as a first date. We’ll have another one of those later when you can raise your game.”
She reached up and kissed him briefly on the lips, a soft peck that was full of promise, and he wished his breath didn’t smell of the crappy beer he’d just had. He smiled as he watched her walking off down the street. His record with women had been, to be polite about it, shite, and he knew it was foolishness to fall for a cop, but she was the good kind of trouble. She was the best kind.